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DEAD ISLAND
A Money Making FAQ/Walkthrough by Ice_Shield
Version 0.8
E-mail xMarineSnowx@gmail.com
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0. Version History & Contact
1. Introduction
2. Getting Started
3. Items Involved
3A. Brand Champagne & Diamonds
3B. Alcohol & Molotovs
3C. Cellphones
3D. Oleander & EXP
3E. Safes and Cash Registers
4. Money Making/Farming Tactics
4A. Act 1
4A1. Hotel
4B. Act 2
4B1. Warehouse
4B2. Supermarket
4B3. Mayor's Office
4B4. Abandoned House
4C. Act 3
4C1. Gun Shop
4D. Act 4
4D1. Laboratory
5. Q&A
6. Credits
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0. VERSION & CONTACT
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=====
Version History
=====
Version 0.8 (Sept 16th, 2011):
+ Updated Money Making/Farming Tactics with a money scale
+ Added Gun Shop to Act 3 and Hotel to Act 1
+ Added on Square option to Laboratory
Version 0.7 (Sept 14th, 2011):
+ Created FAQ
+ Created Version History & Contact
+ Created Introduction
+ Created Getting Started
+ Created Items Involved and all subparts
+ Created Money Making/Farming Tactics and all subparts
+ Created Q&A
+ Created Credits
=====
Contact
=====
If you spot any errors, have additional information to give me or just wanna
say hey, you can email me at xMarineSnowx@gmail.com
If you wish to have this hosted on your site, please also send me an email.
This FAQ is only to be used by GameFAQs.
Please don't sell it or all of that other crap, although I don't know anyone
stupid enough to buy a user written FAQ.
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1. INTRODUCTION
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So I wrote this guide after being on the GameFAQs forums and realizing that the
majority of players either (A) Didn't have enough money to enjoy the game,
(B) Duped all of their inventory to make money or (C) Didn't do A or B. I've
seen people come up with ideas on how to make money in the game, and some of
them are good while others can be improved a lot. I've come up with my own way
of making money in the game and it's pretty wonderful, so I decided to make
this guide, to make a compendium of money making techniques. So, here it is!
I am going to assume that you, as a player, already know how Dead Island works.
I'm not going to explain how items are repaired or any other gameplay knowledge
that does not deal with money making. If you need help with these things you
are looking in the wrong FAQ.
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2. GETTING STARTED
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*THIS FAQ WILL NOT DEAL WITH DUPLICATING ITEMS!
Anyone who suggests to me that you can duplicate items, tells me that this FAQ
is pointless, or insists that I am "ignoring" item duplication will be ignored.
If you want to duplicate items, go ahead, but I will not tell you how nor post
ways to duplicate items/money/weapons/whatever. DON'T ASK!
Some of these ways to make money will revolve around being at a certain part of
the game. That being said, there will be ways someone in Act 1 cannot take part
in because you need to be at Act 4. The farther you are along in the game, the
better it is to make money, due to the many different ways you can choose. Note
that this is not always the case, since some ways will change due to storyline
and may increase or decrease the "payoff" of the area.
A key note to also remember is that money dropped is related to character level
and skill points distributed. If the player has a skill that increases total
money found, they will obviously work better in situations where you pick up
more money as opposed to finding items and selling them. Likewise, a person of
a low level will find less money, so a situation where items are found and sold
prove to be the best.
Finally, some ways to find money that are listed involve randomosity. This
means that you could get lucky and find rare items constantly, or that you
could go for a long while without finding any rare items. The ways listed will
always be the best ways to help you beat out that randomosity.
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3. ITEMS INVOLVED
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Some of these ways to make money will involve looting places in hopes of
finding certain items. Here I'll be listing items which are key to making money
and the reasons why they're "worth it".
================================
3A. Brand Champagne & Diamonds =
================================
Brand Champagne: A semi-event drop (meaning it can only be found in certain
locations) that can be traded in to an NPC (Svetlana) for 100xp and
1 Diamonds.
Diamonds: A rare event drop (meaning it can only be found through an event or
in a container that is programmed to only drop Diamonds.
Champagne and Diamonds are famous in the game because they can only be found in
certain locations, they're worth a lot, they revolve around certain quests, and
finally they're needed to create certain weapons. Champagne can only be found
in certain fridges that are sporadically located around the game map, mostly in
areas that hard to access. Diamonds can only be found in one container and the
rest must be traded from Svetlana.
Svetlana is located on the Resort area (the beach, Act 1) of the game and can
be found at the very far left corner of the map. More specifically, she's in
the very last bungalow at the top right of the map. She will activate a
continuous quest in which you'll have to bring her Champagne. For each bottle
of Brand Champagne she'll give you Diamonds and 100xp. So, Champagne is
theoretically worth $1500.
=========================
3B. Alcohol & Molotov's =
=========================
Bottles of Alcohol can be found all around the island. There are about four
quests in the game which use Alcohol to complete, and I'm not talking one
bottle for each, I'm talking copious amounts. There's one quest that requires
15 Alcohol to complete! There are also at least three quests that involve
trading in Alcohol for explosives. These quests are continuous so you can
complete them multiple times.
Now the reason I'm talking about Molotov's is because for every three bottles
of Alcohol you collect, you can get 1 Molotov from a continuous quest, which
means that in total you can collect a crapton of Molotov's. Molotov's are worth
upwards of $400 each, so it's nice to collect alcohol whenever you can. Besides
having extra Molotovs is never, ever a bad thing.
================
3C. Cellphones =
================
Cellphones aren't something you're going to spend time hunting; you're going to
find them all over the island, all of the time. Each Cellphone is worth $42 and
you can easily find ten in a minute if you're looking through a bunch of
luggage. Since they're so easy to be found (especially in Act 1) and you don't
really need them, they should be one of your first sources of income if you're
strapped for cash.
====================
3D. Oleander & EXP =
====================
Now while this isn't really for money, it's more for EXP, and it's one of the
easiest and fastest ways to make a lot of EXP. Right after you meet the NPC
named Ope you will start a quest which involves you to gather 5 Oleander in
exchange for some money and 1000xp. The money is only $1, so don't get too
excited. However, this is an NPC that sells Oleander. In fact, it's $112 for
each Oleander. So, 5 Oleander comes up to $660. Mathematically, thit means that
each $660 is worth 1000xp, and that each $2 will gain you about 3 exp.
You have $20,000? That's worth 30,000 exp! So, if you really wanted to, you
could call this guide a Money Making / EXP Farming Guide if you wanted too,
considering money directly equals EXP. That's why I've included this.
==============================
3E. Safes and Cash Registers =
==============================
Throughout the game you'll find Cash Registers lying around. In the beginning
of the game you'll find your first one right next to the first workbench you
encounter in the game. You probably opened it up and found around $300. That's
about 30x what you'll find on a zombie at the beginning of the game!
Later on in the game you'll find a safe. Safes are never locked and can be
opened by anyone. There's a chance you'll find a wristwatch, or light fluid,
but most of the time you'll find money. How much money? Well, at least $2k.
Remember that higher levels will make you find more money. Around level 30 I
was finding about $3-4.5k per safe (that contained money, which was 80% of the
time).
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4. MONEY MAKING/FARMING TACTICS
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Now it's time for the good stuff. I've broken it down to different Acts, and
while you may be in Act 2, you might not be far enough into Act 2 to be able to
do it correctly. That being said, I'll make notes (as good as I can) to the
earliest you can achieve these methods in each act. Also, remember, item
duplication will not be mentioned.
I will grade each tactic by a couple parameters;
Profits : How much money you can gain
Difficulty: How difficult it is to complete
Luck Base : How much the tactic relies on "luck" on things like looting items
Repetitive: How quickly and often you'll complete the same actions
I've created the following list on the best ways to make money on a scale.
You can use the find codes (ctrl+f) after each to quick find.
Per Hour Act Area Located FCode
$310,000 (Act 4) Laboratory (4D1)
$90,000 (Act 2) Supermarket (4B2)
$70,000 (Act 3) Gunshop (4C1)
$65,000 (Act 1) Hotel (4A1)
$48,000 (Act 2) Warehouse (4B1)
$30,000 (Act 2) Abandoned House (4B4)
$24,000 (Act 2) Mayor's Office (4B3)
Remember that money may vary depending on your level so someone level 40 will
find items and money that is higher value than someone who is level 10. Some of
these ways are also very luck-based, so I took the lowest and highest value you
could find in an hour and averaged it.
From the scale, you can obviously see that Act 4 has the best way. Since that's
plenty of hours into the game, the earliest way is the Hotel at $65k an hour.
Act 2 also has the second highest with the Supermarket at 90k an hour.
===========
4A. Act 1 =
===========
Starting off in Act 1, you should first play out the game and get a "feel" for
how you'll need money. Normally I wouldn't post things like how to make money
so early in the game, but I found Act 1 to be the one place where I NEEDED
money. I'd suggest doing a few of the main quests to "open up" the game.
=====
4A1. Hotel
=====
Profits : $7-$15k per trip (10m), $42-$90k per hour
Difficulty: 2.5/5
Luck Base : 3/5
Repetitive: 2/5
Eventually through the questline you'll get access to the hotel. Once inside
you will find a few cash registers (and zombies) in the first area. Loot the
registers to find about 1k per register (there are three or four registers).
Now you can exit this part of the hotel and pick one of two ways. If you're
feeling lucky you can run along the right hand side of the hotel and loot bags
and hope for large sums of cash or rare items, or you can go back into the
hotel and reloot the cash registers. You may have some luck with the bags but
I find that the registers work just fine.
Is it worth it? So early in the game I would say yes if you need money. I don't
know why you would need to farm more than 10k or so but it
definitely helps to go farming when you need it.
===========
4B. Act 2 =
===========
In Act 2 you'll start in the city. The first thing you should do is complete
quests that lead up to unlocking the Church and the Warehouse, in which the
Warehouse is located south/southeast of the Church, which should be surrounded
by zombies as indicated on your mini map.
=====
4B1. Warehouse
=====
Profits : $400 per trip (30s), $48k per hour
Difficulty: 1/5
Luck Base : 0/5
Repetitive: 5/5
Starting at the Warehouse, loot all of the weapons you can find. You should
find a hammer, a baseball bat, and a knife all in the warehouse. Now Fast
Travel to the Church and sell the items. Fast Travel back to the Warehouse and
the weapons should reappear.
This is the easiest way to make money in the game because it requires fighting
no zombies, relies on no luck because the items will always be there, and can
be done faster than any other way. The downside of this is that it's very, very
monotonous and the reward isn't that great per trip. Yes, $400 every 30 seconds
may seem nice especially when you don't have to fight zombies, but you'll start
getting sick of this method before you even earn $10k.
Is it worth it? No, but if you're in a pinch or don't like doing monotonous
tasks, sure.
=====
4B2. Supermarket
=====
Profits : $5-$10k per trip (5m), $60-120k per hour
Difficulty: 2/5
Luck Base : 4/5
Repetitive: 2/5
As you proceed through Act 2 you will come across a quest that involves you
raiding a Supermarket. The Supermarket will be FULL of gun-wielding humans,
which gives it the 2/5 difficulty rating, but you only have to kill them off
once, which is why it's a low rating.
Inside the Supermarket you'll come across a bunch of cash registers (5 or so
off the top of my head) and a bunch of coolers which can contain Champagne (and
I mean a LOT of coolers). The goal here is to run in, grab what's in the cash
registers and coolers (hoping for Champagne) and then run out of the place.
Then you go back in and repeat the process. Since each trip takes a good five
minutes, it takes quite a few runs for it to start getting annoying, but by
that time you'll have raked in a bunch of cash and a few champagnes.
Is it worth it? Yes, if you're at that point of the story, but you have to go
through the Sewers to get there. If you know your way there, go
for it, but if not you might want to stick to another tactic.
=====
4B3. Mayor's Office
=====
Profits : $2k per run (5m), $24k per hour
Difficulty: 2.5/5
Luck Base : 0/5
Repetitive: 3/5
Along your questline you'll receive a quest to go meet the Mayor. After this
quest you'll have another quest to go back to meet him again. After you arrive
back at the Mayor's Office you'll find it to be quite different than before
(keeping it spoiler free). In the Mayor's room you'll find a briefcase
containing Diamonds. This is one of the only places in the game where you can
find Diamonds to loot, let alone that it's programmed to always be dropped.
What's even better is that when you Load Last Checkpoint the Diamonds will
reappear in the briefcase!
You'll have to fight off some Walkers, Infected and one Suicider in the path to
the Mayor's Office, but you'll always get the Diamonds. There are a few bags
here and there to check through so you can rake in an extra $500 per run. It
does get a little repetitive after you do it a couple of times.
Is it worth it? If you need Diamonds, yes. This is the only sure-fire way to
get diamonds in the game. If you're looking for money instead
of diamonds, go with other methods as they're quicker, easier
and involve less fighting.
=====
4B4. Abandoned House
=====
Profits : ~$1k per run (2m), $30k per hour
Difficulty: 2/5
Luck Base : 5/5
Repetitive: 3/5
As soon as you get into the Church you can start a sidequest where a man wants
you to put his wife and child "out of their pain". You then have to go off and
find their Abandonded House (which is actually somewhat of an apartment) and
kill off his family (that's what the quest tells you from the beginning). Once
you get into the house and kill his family you'll find the true treasure; two
coolers which can be full of beautiful Champagne. They're in the rooms with the
wife and child. When you're finished just walk out and back into the place and
you'll be able to reloot the coolers.
Your first run through you'll be greeted with a dozen or so zombies, including
a few Infected, but it isn't that bad. With every run-through thereafter you'll
only have to fight off around 4 zombies, so it's not that difficult. Since
there are two coolers that can contain Champagne you'll be making on average
about $1000 per run (or two champagne every three runs).
Is it worth it? If you need Diamonds, yes. If not, somewhat, because it does
rely on luck. If you're feeling lucky then go for it. If not, I
would stick to another method.
===========
4C. Act 3 =
===========
Act 3 for me seemed so quick that I don't really know if it's worth it to farm
for money. It would probably be better to just go finish the Act and start on
Act 4 for the Lab. This Act took me no more than an hour and a half to finish.
Nonetheless, if you need to farm money, you can take a look at this trick.
=====
4C1. Gun Shop
=====
Profits : $2-5k per trip (3m), $40-$100k per hour
Difficulty: 1.5/5
Luck Base : 5/5
Repetitive: 4/5
Technically this is in the city, but you must be in Act 3 in order for this to
work, so I've included it here. Go around the city and to the south you should
see a building with a bunch of people trying to get inside. You should have
gone by this place when doing the Cerberus quests.
Once inside you'll get a Fast Travel location called "Square". Once there, head
outside and go west/northwest until you see the Travel to Sewers portal. On the
next block to the left is the Gun Shop. You may need to do a quest to get
access to it.
As you go into the gun shop there'll be a back hallway containing one metal
chest and a cash register. Simply loot the contents and walk back out. Repeat.
If you manage to see a weapon worth keeping or worth a lot of money in the
metal chest, keep it.
Is it worth it? Somewhat. The ability to always find a metal chest is great if
you're looking for weapons. If not, you can make a chunk of
change this way, but you're better off waiting until the Lab in
Act 4 to get the big moolah.
===========
4D. Act 4 =
===========
Act 4 has the BEST way to make money in the game. It's BY FAR the most
profitable and there's no reason to do any other ways once you get to the Lab.
=====
4D1. Laboratory
=====
Profits : $8.5-$12k per run (2m), $255-$360k per hour
Difficulty: 1.5/5
Luck Base : 3/5
Repetitive: 2/5
NOTE: I have received a few emails that starting in the Abandoned House named
"Square" makes more money than Jungle River. Since I don't have my game on me
at the moment I can't check out the claim. I've been told that Square contains
two fridges in which you can get more champagne from. It is up to you if you
want to choose Square or Jungle River. If hype lives up to Square, it would
more than likely add on at least $50k per hour. Credits go to PhoenixAssassin
and White Knight 01 for the information.
This is the end-all be-all techniques to making money. You not only profit
money per run, you're also getting Champagne (Diamonds) and a crapload of
Alcohol (which means Molotovs). Not to mention that there's an NPC that sells
Oleander, which is involved in a continuous quest to where you gain 1k exp per
5 Oleanders. So, you can take your profits from this and get tons of EXP.
To do this you need to complete the first couple of quests in the laboratory
where you'll gain access to the other half of the laboratory. Once you gain
access to the second part of the lab (where you save a guy from like three
zombies) you can do this whenever you like. Please take note that it may take
you a couple trips to get down the "feel" of the run.
Start off by storing all of your weapons except for one with Jin. Travel to the
Jungle River. Pick up the two bottles of alcohol and now travel to the Lab.
When the loading screen goes away you'll instantly be attacked by an Infected
literally right behind you. The good thing is that the game is programmed to
give you a few seconds before damage starts getting taken off so you can take
him down with a hit or two.
Once the infected is down run into the lab. Go into the room with the Workbench
and to the left of it you'll see a Safe. Open it up and grab the cash if it's
in there. Once that's done, run past the janitor named Joel Dirt and grab the
two bottles of alcohol in the room directly behind him. When this is done run
into the lab on your right, then into the next door on your left with the NPC.
In here you'll find two fridges which will either contain nothing, lemon juice,
alcohol or Champagne. Hope for Champagne. When this is done, get out back to
the hallway you were just in and run across into the second part of the lab
(past the double doors) and go into the first room on your right. In this room
you'll find a Safe against the back wall. Hope for money. Exit this room and
go into the room immediately on your right. In here you'll find another Safe
and another fridge. Hope for Champagne and money. If you've completed a couple
more quests you can additionally go into the "quarantined" room on your left
which will contain another bottle of alcohol. When this is all done run back to
the map and travel back to Jungle River. Repeat the process.
It sounds like a lot, I know, but once you get in there you'll realize what to
get and where to go. It goes like this;
Start at Jungle River
+Alcohol
+Alcohol
Travel to Lab
+Kill Infected
+Safe
+Alcohol
+Alcohol
+Fridge
+Fridge
+Safe
+Safe
+Fridge
+Alcohol
Repeat back at Jungle River
In the end you'll get:
+5 Alcohol (4 if you do not have access to the "quarantine" room)
+3 Safes
+3 Fridges which can contain Champagne or Alcohol
I was averaging around 3.5k per safe and about two safes had money in them per
run. For every three runs I got about four champagne. I also got about one
extra alcohol per run from the fridges. In three runs that's 21k cash, 18
alcohol and four Champagne/Diamonds.
Do this as many times as you want. When you're finished go back to the Resort
area (the beach) and trade in your Champagne at Svetlana for Diamonds and your
Alcohol for Molotov's from Harlan. I suggest Harlan since he only requires 3
Alcohol per Molotov while other NPC's require 5.
Why Jungle River? Because you get two alcohol right after arriving. All other
places didn't have anything right off the get go.
Why Molotovs? Since Alcohol is received anyway, there's no point to keeping it
(unless you're Logan) so you might as well make some Molotov's off of it.
Now, if you want to turn that money into EXP, listen. The Janitor Joel Dirt in
the Lab will sell Oleander for $112 a piece. Later in the Act you'll find
someone to trade that Oleander (5 of them) for 1000 EXP (and $1). Since you'll
be making about 10k per run, that's 15,000EXP per run!
NOTE: If you continue with the quests in Act 4 you will complete an escort
mission. After this mission is over all NPCs will vanish in the Lab which means
you can no longer buy Oleander from Joel. I am unsure if other NPCs sell
Oleander so you may want to hold off on that quest. Also, all doors will vanish
in the Lab after this escort quest, which will make running through this loop
a lot easier.
Is it worth it? Yes. Yes yes yes. If you convert all of the money into EXP,
including the diamonds to money to EXP, you'll be making
roughly 500,000 exp per hour. Level 47 is 2m EXP and level 50
is 3m EXP, which means in four hours you can level from 1 to 47
with almost no zombie fighting whatsoever.
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5. Q&A
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Q. I have a better way to farm money!
A. Does it deal with duplicating items? If so, no. If not, feel free to email
me, but if it isn't any better than any other technique in that Act, it's
not worth adding. If it is I'll credit you!
Q. Why don't you just duplicate? Lolol.
A. Duplicating isn't something I like. I like being able to look at the
resources in a game and play it how it was intended, not how it wasn't. If
you have such a big hatred of people working for their gaming satisfaction
because they won't cheat, you seriously need to prioritize your time.
Q. Something you listed is incorrect.
A. It could be that the game was patched to fix whatever got changed. I would
assume that the Oleander quest will get patched to 100exp instead of 1000
pretty soon. If you do notice anything incorrect, send me an email and I
will update it with a credit going out to you.
Q. Champagne? Diamonds? Svetlana?
A. Svetlana can be found in the top left bungalow on the Resort Area (beach) of
the game, in Act 1. She is literally the last thing you'll find at the
north east part of the map. Literally last thing. She'll give you Diamonds
for every Champagne you give her.
Q. I can't find Champagne!
A. I've noticed places have different payout rates for Champagne. For example,
the Supermarket gives less Champagne than the Lab does for some reason.
I can almost always find one Champagne in the three fridges at the Lab but
I can do three trips at the Supermarket and not find one Champagne in all
of the freezers. Must just be my luck.
Q. Why do you need all that money anyways?
A. Repairing legendary weapons costs thousands and thousands of dollars. Fixing
or creating a Developer weapon costs 10,000 and 10 Diamonds. And as listed
you can exchange money to EXP at a 1:1.5 ratio.
Q. Why don't you have any ways listed for Act 5?
A. Once you're in Act 5 you can't go back, so I felt no reason why anyone
should pick a "point of no return" point to start farming money. As for
Act 1 and Act 3, I don't have my game on me so I don't know any specifics
for those areas. They'll come in an update later in the week.
Q. My game corrupted after I listened to you!
A. Game Corruption may have a link to having an excess amount of items in your
inventory. For this reason, if you do decide to trade the Oleander for EXP
you should follow some precautions; never buy more than 99 Oleander in one
sitting. Never turn off your game when the "Oleander taken" text is on
the left side of your screen. Always save the game by exiting to the main
menu. If you are not trading in the Oleander for EXP, nothing in this
guide will make your game corrupt; NOTHING.
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6. CREDITS
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Basilmarket - Just letting you know that HolyMythos is awesome ;)
GameFAQs - For their site, which would leave me so much less of a gamer without
Dead Island Board on GameFAQs - For being awesome and helping me with the game
when I needed it
Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 & 2 Board - Just so that I can say "Hollah" and
that this FAQ has it written in document that I am the owner of the Knack.
Hell, it was on a fortune cookie! I am the rightful owner.
In closing, I'd like to thank you for reading my FAQ. If you have any questions
remember to contact me at xMarineSnowx@gmail.com